Italians and Other People

...In short, their experience in America reinforced the traditional Sicilian view that survival depended on rigid adherence to I'ordine della jamiglia...

...He offers timely reminders that Italians came "over the seas under conditions whose baseness was exceeded only by the old African slavers...

...He argues, in a manner reminiscent of blacks talking about "soul," that Italian-Americans have a great deal to contribute toward the solution of America's undeniable cultural crisis...

...Surely, Gambino cannot believe that any amount of cultural understanding between blacks and Italian-Americans will prevent race war as long as one group is scrambling over the other in an economic jungle...

...Examining their attitude toward education, he sheds light on the lack of upward mobility, despite an impressively advancing standard of living...

...Unfortunately, Gambino does not challenge the economic and social presuppositions of American society...

...But there are families and families...

...With 25,000 Italians now coming into the United States every year, la via vecchia (the old way) should be getting some needed reinforcement...

...Gambino clearly knows the relevant literature and has done his homework (though he omits footnotes, bibliography and scholarly apparatus), yet true to his admission, his study flows primarily from his own experience: This is an individualized attempt to lay bare the Italian-American soul to Americans, who rarely see more than hardworking Archie Bunkers with names ending in vowels, when of course they do not see mafiosi...

...My grandparents came from Palermo and Messina, and I was raised in Brooklyn by American-born parents not many years earlier...

...And the first step is for them to recapture full consciousness of their identity: to understand their roots, and to meet the dual responsibility inherent in their ethnicity...

...in fact, he generally ignores the 10-20 per cent who did not derive from the Mezzogiorno?the provinces south of Rome...

...and that Italian-Americans were lynched and murdered in larger numbers than their countrymen care to recall...

...Gambino's grandparents came from Palermo, and he was raised in Brooklyn by American-born parents...

...For Gambino, this, more than anything else, sets Italians apart and provides the key to their successes and failures in the United States...

...Nonetheless, questions remain...

...In Italian, a person is said to be buono come il pane As good as bread...

...Ironically, Sicily's bitterest moment came with what was jocularly called "Italian unification" A unification that amounted to occupation and oppression by hostile northern Italians, supported by the predatory local ruling class...

...Perhaps the Sicilians in New Orleans or Chicago or Providence have had a radically different history...

...Now I should not hesitate to add, "And Richard Gambino's Blood of My Blood...

...He has much to say about the roots of the Italian-American failure to produce major political leaders...

...Now, Italian-Americans are not unique in being family-centered...

...There is a danger here...

...Any Sicilian will tell you that only a fesso perfetto, a perfect fool, risks his family's security by doing such things...

...On the other hand, Gambino joins the issue of the confrontation between blacks and Italian-Americans with courage and insight...

...Reviewed by Eugene D. Genovese Chairman, Department of History, University of Rochester...

...For example, blacks would, I suspect, readily say Amen to Gambino's closing words: "As Professor Robert Di Pietro is fond of pointing out, Americans typically say that a person is 'good as gold.' The standard Italian expression carries a fundamentally different, more humanistic meaning...

...Although some of Gambino's interpretations of black history may be challenged as imprecise or partial or even wrong, he nevertheless provides a respectful picture of Afro-America to his Italian-American constituency...

...Succinctly but brilliantly, Gambino describes how the Sicilians survived by placing loyalty to the family above all other loyalties, and details the direct and indirect effects of Vordine della famiglia: the cautious integration of only a few outsiders...

...Lovingly, he traces the formation of specific ideals of manliness and womanliness demolishing along the way a host of stereotypes And explores the character and consequences of the family-based work ethic, so different not simply from the Anglo-Saxon but from the Afro-American and others as well...

...Gambino ranges widely, from such topics as labor unions to sexual mores to cooking...

...Perhaps I am too close...

...I am not convinced that Gam-bino is right in thinking that Italian-Americans, without knowing it, are holding on to the core of the tradition even as they lose the language and drift away from Little Italys...

...The opening chapters of Blood of My Blood powerfully sketch the Sicilian struggle for survival against wave upon wave of foreign conquerors, who were commonly in league with local landowners...

...Blood of My Blood does far more, however, than celebrate the past or explain for the sake of explanation...

...And whereas discrimination may play an important role in the exclusion of Italian-Americans from the church hierarchy never a cardinal and only a handful of bishops it cannot explain everything...

...He does not attempt to homogenize all Italian-Americans...

...If Italian-Americans and blacks are to have that reconciliation he so eloquently pleads for, they will have to cooperate in the construction of an America that does not need a poor underclass...

...Asked in the past by friends what they might read about Italian-Americans, I usually replied, "Mario Puzo's novel" meaning The Fortunate Pilgrim, not his recent and financially more successful effort...

...It is a commonplace that they find it easier to appreciate Jews than certain other Catholic groups because they recognize and respect something like the Jewish concept of the family...

...the sharp line drawn against stra-nieri (strangers, though in reality, the rest of the world, near and far...

...In a more appropriate time and place Gambino's assumption that blacks can be understood merely as another American ethnic group will also have to be challenged...

...The argument for a distinct Afro-American nation-within-a-nation in the United States is stronger than he implies, and it raises numerous questions that go well beyond those he dwells on...

...As such, his account contributes significantly to a desperately needed new departure in relations between these two peoples...

...Moreover, he knows Sicily and the Sicilians best, and would probably admit that his work should be refined !o account for the several types of southerners...

...I agree that the process of assimilation has been much slower than outsiders think, yet I fear the trend toward rootlessness, based on deeper social and economic forces than Gambino discusses, is steadily gaining momentum...

...Gambino's eye is on present problems and future prospects...

...author, "The Political Economy of Slavery," "The World the Slaveholders Made," and the forthcoming "Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made" Richard Gambino, professor at Queens College and chairman of the only Italian-American studies program I am aware of, concedes in the preface to his book that while Blood of My Blood draws upon many scholarly sources, "it is a personal interpretation...

...He does not deny the presence of racism among Italian-Americans but argues that it is much exaggerated And I emphatically concur...

...Yet he does insist on a binding tradition, still strong among third and fourth generation Italian-Americans, at the core of which is the family...

...Gambino does not think so, and he makes an arresting case for the fundamental unity of the Italian experience in this country...

...Thus, he ends a good chapter on childhood and education by warning our people to mend their ways or risk becoming "the poor underclass of tomorrow's America," which is exactly what blacks have been and are still being programmed to be...

...The Italian-American version, with its notion of order (Xordine della famiglia), has its own history and, accordingly, exhibits special characteristics...

...Proudly, he points to the spirit that both in Italy and America turned slums into decent, livable Italo-American communities, and that accounts for a fierce opposition to welfare schemes...

...To this day, northerners speak of Sicilians as "Africans" or "Ethiopians" in context, "niggers" when they do not invoke less flattering terms...

...Still, Italian-Americans and Afro-Americans, despite profound cultural differences, have some basic attitudes in common, and these are likely to become more important as time goes by...

...Yet Gambino does not flinch from pointing out the dangers...

...Indeed, his excellent discussion vividly shows how superficial are the arguments based solely on racism or economic competition, and one of his finest sections gives a sympathetic sketch of the black experience in contrast with the Italian-American...

...He fears that third and fourth generation Italian-Americans may lose touch with their heritage and at the same time find themselves psychologically bound to it in ways that prevent complete assimilation...

...that, as common laborers, they were paid 10-15 per cent less than blacks, who were of course paid less than whites...

...How well has Gambino succeeded...

...the formalities to be maintained even with amici (friends, who are not to be confused with family...

...Nor does he want assimilation if it means a complete break with the heritage...

...Since he has written a frankly personalized account, I find myself compelled to give a personal answer...

...But he further demonstrates that black (i.e., Afro-American) culture and Italian-American culture exist on many levels as polar opposites, and that the possibilities for misunderstanding are enormous...